Norwegian neo-Nazi goes on race hate trial in France

Neo-Nazi writer and musician Kristian Vikernes, who has been convicted of murder and of burning churches in his native Norway, goes on trial in France Thursday, accused of glorifying war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A Norwegian neo-Nazi accused of inciting racial hatred is due to go on trial in France on Thursday.

“Black Metal” musician Kristian Vikernes was arrested in July in France's central Corrèze region on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks after his wife, a licensed gun-owner, bought shotguns and other weapons.

He will be tried for “provoking racial hatred” and “glorifying war crimes” after police found allegedly anti-Semitic and racist material on his computer and his blog.

He is also charged with “glorifying crimes against humanity”, for which he could face up to five years in prison.

Vikernes, who was released on police bail after his arrest, has stated that he will attend court in order to “defend Europe against Judeo-Christianity”.

He accuses Christians of being the “worst destroyers of culture, tradition, peoples and races” while calling for a return to a “pagan Europe”.

Vikernes, 40, is known in his native Norway as a black metal musician who set fire to churches and killed rival musician Øystein Aarseth in 1993.

After his release from jail in 2009 he moved to France where he became a self-styled “survivalist”.

Intelligence services suspected Vikernes of sympathising with Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik, who murdered 77 people in a shooting spree in Norway in 2011.

Vikernes admits that he downloaded Breivik’s ‘manifesto’ but has written that he disapproved of the mass-killer’s actions.

“He’s very clear on this,” his lawyer Julien Fressynet said when Vikernes was arrested. “There is absolutely no link between him and Breivik.”

Vikernes himself claims he is victim of a “campaign of terror at the hands of the [French] Socialist government” targeting him and his family. He has vowed to sue the French state.